BirdistheWord
HB Legend
No way Fran plays eleven. This is the most solid 8 he’s ever had and it was proven last year a shorter bench means better results. Luka, CJ, Joey all log 32plus, Connor and JOrdan 28 plus, Jack Patrick Joe T fill in the top 8 and the freshmen have to wait their turn or redshirt. This team is too good and too proven from last year to mess with the lineup. LUka, Joey, CJ are all rated in the top 14 in the league they aren’t coming out but for a breather. Luka is best player in the nation...Joey was third team, led Big in free Throw percentage and had a very good year... CJ was most efficient player in college b-ball,led Big in 3 pt percentage, all freshmen team...Connor lead Nation In assist to turnover ratio, .....Jordan is college b-ball best long range sniper. Those five better play and play a ton! The top 8 will be best we have ever had at owa!
We definitely had success with the core 8 last year but 1. As good as we were we still went 11-9 in conference, its not like we cant get better and 2. We were living on the edge as bringing in Riley Till and even Pemsl could be shaky...was very rough, we could absolutely use more quality depth and finally 3. We lose a few from the Core 8 last year so will have to experiment and dont believe it will be a one for one.
Just because i said up to 11 for a rotation, does not mean overhauling the entire thing. Maybe it ends up somewhere in between like 9 or 10, who knows. But we have an influx of new talent who have played sparingly (Nunge, Pmac) or not at all (Ulis, Murray, Murray, Ogundele and Perkins) so have to believe more than two guys out of above will be added to the consistent rotation at least in some fashion.
Ultimately we are not red-shirting 5 guys, and while the key 6 guys will still get heavy minutes (Joe T less so), the rest of the minutes will be spread out among a few more guys in my opinion. I say Ogundele and Keegan will see the floor consistently, probably between Riley Till (5.1) and Pemsl (12.7) minutes. So, I would be willing to revise my aggressive "11" to "10." I do think we will see 11 prior to the B1G, but could see it tighten up slightly to 10 in conference and tournament play.